


It Knocks

by milliebrown



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Horror, Short One Shot, stayhomewrimo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23297848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milliebrown/pseuds/milliebrown
Summary: A very short horror story written in light of the new #StayAtHomeWriMo based off of the prompt: "You're character is stuck inside. Why are they there? And how do they feel about it?"





	It Knocks

It’s out there. 

Sara can feel it. 

Just outside of the four walls she used to feel so safe in. She can’t sleep. Hardly eat. It consumes her mind, her blood flows with fear. 

Mandatory quarantine started months ago. A feeble attempt to get a handle on the ethereal killer taking lives indiscriminately and without prejudice. 

It began slowly. A sinister creep. Just enough to keep the world ignorant and complacent. One body here. Dead from mysterious trauma. Maybe it was murder, cops in New Jersey had speculated. And maybe the next, in Paris, was a freak accident. So many. Spread out all over the world. Tribes in South America woke one day to find their protectors have been slaughtered. Nothing notable enough to pay attention to. 

Even if they had known then, the menace that was about to sweep across the world, humanity couldn’t possibly have prepared. 

It grabbed the media’s attention at the beginning of the year. Grabbed a hold and never let go. Even as the last broadcast aired they were still reporting on it. “God save the human race,” Grace Birmingham, channel 3’s darling reporter had said. Tears brimmed her waterline, fell down her abnormally bare cheeks. A woman who once held herself with graceful dignity. Wore the latest fashion, who’s hair was perfect. Makeup, a work of art. She sat in her seat, behind her desk, one last time. Barefaced, in bloody dark gray sweats. Broken and exhausted, she advised whoever was listening, this would be the last broadcast, she had no advise; the government had fallen and no hope or help was on the horizon.

“It’s still knocking...” Her last words before the picture went fuzzy.

Sara’s room’s walls are thin (a renovated portion of a 3 car garage). It’s crawling over her broken down 2 door Oldsmobile. Light scraping against aluminum and glass. She can’t move. If it hears her, and it hears well, it will never leave. It will stay and play mind-games until she comes out. 

The only solace humans had were their closed doors, their walls, and locked windows-- but no more. It does not give up once it knows. 

She blocked the pathway to her backyard with all three of her trashcans. They’re moving now. Skirting inch by inch across dirty concrete. One tumbles against the wall to her right and she narrowly screams. She covers her mouth with both hands, trembling. Watches the wall, as if she can see through it. See that thing nudging past the last trash can, crawling over her fence, into the backyard. 

Two doors lead into her room. One going into the garage, leading into the house. And the other one. The one standing ominously straight ahead in her line of sight opens up into the backyard. A small window in the door is covered up with cardboard and black tape. On the other side, a steel grate blocks the door and crashes hard onto the ground. This wakes her 3-year-old fawn Chihuahua, Danny; the only family she’s got left. Unaware of the danger or of how important it is to stay quiet, the dog starts to growl, a low throaty gurgle. 

Sara tries to console the dog. But consoling only riles him more as the grate is dragged along the ground outside. Desperate she holds his muzzle shut, begging him to stop. 

There’s a rap on the window. Three more follow. Danny won’t stop barking. It won’t stop knocking.


End file.
